iCloud: Handling different MobileMe and iTunes Accounts

[boston04and07]

PEOPLE! STOP PANICING! Threre are hundreds of thousands of people like me who had Apple ID accounts for years and then one day decided to sign up for MobileMe with a MobileMe email address and have different Apple ID and mobile me accounts. Apple knows this and will come up with a solution. Apple is not gonna let people lose all their purchases. Get real people. It was just announced yesterday and still has months to go before going live. JUST HANG ON A BIT! SHEESH!

Now that I've thought about it a bit I agree. It'd be so outlandish of them to force people who paid for both iTunes purchases and .me email addresses choose between the two when iCloud comes out of beta. I know MM wasn't the most successful venture by them but they still had enough people sign up in order to make this a widespread issue.

The thing is, most MM users were already the hardcore Mac users to begin with. Why they thought these people wouldn't already have iTunes Apple ID's in the first place, and therefore decided make new iTunes Apple ID's with new MM accounts, is beyond me.

In any event I still think it's a good idea for us all to send feedback to Apple, just in case.

 

[BK.]

You are not reading what I said. I see in the second shot the AppleID can be changed. When I click edit and try to change it to jsmith@mac.com for example, it says I can't because jsmith@mac.com is already in use as an AppleID on the first account.



Yes. We are talking about changing the AppleID itself, not the email address associated with it. The idea being you would have only one AppleID to use for MobileMe and iTunes.

Nope, I read it clear. I just never got that error ever. Nothing about it being in use at all, it let me change it like it did any other e-mail address. And then login and use it, as I would any other Apple ID, - again, with no errors.

I'm not saying it works. I'm saying it worked for me a few months ago.

Seriously - this is petty stuff. I really wouldn't bother lying about something a) so out of the blue and random and b) small/non-major.

 

[Weaselboy]

Seriously - this is petty stuff. I really wouldn't bother lying about something a) so out of the blue and random and b) small/non-major.

I never meant to imply you were lying, just saying it won't work for me.

 

[Nanker/Phelge]

PEOPLE! STOP PANICING! Threre are hundreds of thousands of people like me who had Apple ID accounts for years and then one day decided to sign up for MobileMe with a MobileMe email address and have different Apple ID and mobile me accounts. Apple knows this and will come up with a solution. Apple is not gonna let people lose all their purchases. Get real people. It was just announced yesterday and still has months to go before going live. JUST HANG ON A BIT! SHEESH!

+1...I've got a feeling they'll finally allow you to merge/transfer purchases once iCloud is available. Half the reason I signed up for MM was to reserve my user name for the new service...lets hope I'm right but only time will tell.

 

[Fiesta]

+1...I've got a feeling they'll finally allow you to merge/transfer purchases once iCloud is available. Half the reason I signed up for MM was to reserve my user name for the new service...lets hope I'm right but only time will tell.

Fingers crossed...

 

[rowley]

Im sure there will be a way to merge in the near future. I've tried several ways, to no joy.

I will wait and see, I'm sure it'll be posted here when it's possible.

 

[Carniphage]

Im sure there will be a way to merge in the near future. I've tried several ways, to no joy.

I will wait and see, I'm sure it'll be posted here when it's possible.

Merging is not needed.

We just need some way of transferring a MobileMe email address into the iCloud account. I am hoping Apple will give us a way to do that.

C.

 

[d21mike]

Merging is not needed.

We just need some way of transferring a MobileMe email address into the iCloud account. I am hoping Apple will give us a way to do that.

C.

Someone else posted this. I think the current iCloud is for beta testing and you can't use your MobileMe Account ID, but when they are ready you will simply do an upgrade. Of course when you are ready to drop MobileMe which you would have to do it before June 2012.

https://www.me.com/upgrade/

 

[Carniphage]

Someone else posted this. I think the current iCloud is for beta testing and you can't use your MobileMe Account ID, but when they are ready you will simply do an upgrade. Of course when you are ready to drop MobileMe which you would have to do it before June 2012.

https://www.me.com/upgrade/

Upgrading is the last thing I want. My paid content is associated with one (non-mobile me) Apple ID. My MobileMe account is just for email and syncing.

So I want to base my iCloud identity on my iTunes ID - and instead of creating a new MobileMe address - use my existing one.

C.

 

[d21mike]

Upgrading is the last thing I want. My paid content is associated with one (non-mobile me) Apple ID. My MobileMe account is just for email and syncing.

So I want to base my iCloud identity on my iTunes ID - and instead of creating a new MobileMe address - use my existing one.

C.

I see. Since I share my iTunes ID with my wife for buying music and apps and movies I do not want to use it as my email account as well. For me I want to keep the two separate. Anyway, there is a option for "coping content" out of MobileMe into iCloud. The page that documents this is in the Developer Web Site. There are multiple ways to do it. I.E. From MAC OS LION or from an iOS Device. Not difficult to do but for me I want to keep them separate anyway so I will do the Upgrade.

 

[Carniphage]

Since I share my iTunes ID with my wife for buying music and apps and movies I do not want to use it as my email account as well.

As I understand it, iOS permits non iCloud email accounts alongside the iCloud one.

You and your wife could both have the same iCloud logon, and retain different email addresses. But unless you want to share calendars and contacts with your wife, you'll have to find other services.

C.

 

[d21mike]

As I understand it, iOS permits non iCloud email accounts alongside the iCloud one.

You and your wife could both have the same iCloud logon, and retain different email addresses. But unless you want to share calendars and contacts with your wife, you'll have to find other services.

C.

Until it is finally released it is hard to be absolutely sure. But I think my iCloud ID will be used for ALL of my personal stuff (not just email). As it is shown in another tread that you can have a Primary iCloud ID and a Secondary iCloud ID but you can only Sync Bookmarks and do Photo Streaming with your Primary iCloud ID. This was the first that I heard of Primary and Secondary. However, I feel these CAN be separate from your iTunes Store ID where your purchased content comes from. This is the only "Shared Account ID" that I would have. My wife and I would want to keep "everything" else separate like we do now with MobileMe. We do Share a Calendar but that was created my me and I added her MobileMe ID as Authorized to update it.

I assume you are already reading this tread but if not I recommend it:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1165858/

 

[Carniphage]

This was the first that I heard of Primary and Secondary.

Me too. Didn't realise that. So I could have my MobileMe account upgraded to an iCloud account - and retain both my paid content and my email address.

I'm happy now.

But I suspect people who share AppleID identities with others to share paid content might be a bit less happy.

C.

 

[ArmanUV]

I'm in the exact same situation as you guys are but I don't understand the obsession of merging the two accounts. it'd definitely be nice if apple allowed merging the accounts but even if they don't, it isn't going to affect anything. iCloud and iTunes in the Cloud are different services for different purposes and can be tied to different apple IDs.
iTunes in the cloud, which is available right now on ios 5 bata and ios 4.3, allows OTA updates for music, apps and books. This is tied to the account you use for itunes store purchases, and it can be configured on the iphone in Settings>Store menu as you can see in this screenshot (my apple ID is for the canadian itunes store which doesn't enable music sync in the beta stage).

iCloud, however, is for mail, contacts, calendars, reminders, find my iphone and mac, photo stream, OTA daily backups and documents. It can be tied to a different apple ID than itunes in the cloud, and will be available in fall. on the iphone, there is a separate section in the Settings app for setting it up:

So unless you have an ocd to keep everything nice and clean, stop panicking.

PS: This is the current setup I have on ios 5 beta:

iCloud> Apple ID: email@gmail.com (personal gmail account) > Photostream, Reminders, Backups
Mobileme> Apple ID: mobileme@me.com (mobileme account) > Mail, Contacts, Calanders, Notes, Find my iPhone, Bookmarks
iTunes Store: Apple ID : appleid (shared with my family) > OTA download of purchased apps, musics and books

When iCloud goes official, my mobileme account will switch over to iCloud, which allows me to delete the icloud account tied to my gmail address and use the ported @me.com address for everything except itunes in the cloud and itunes match which I'll be sharing with my family.

 

[MobiusStrip]

Apple's fault; they need to fix it.

Talk about amateur hour. Even the lamest bulletin-board site allows users to set up legitimate IDs. You don't see banks or other secure sites using E-mail addresses for user IDs.

More Apple "elegance."

I don't understand the obsession of merging the two accounts. it'd definitely be nice if apple allowed merging the accounts but even if they don't, it isn't going to affect anything.

Not true at all. There are numerous defects in iTunes and content management on the phone that occur when items are purchased with multiple accounts.

First, iTunes will tell you that several of your apps have updates, but when you go to the updates page, it'll say that there are no updates available. It also won't show you the accounts under which the various items were purchased.

Second, if you are entitled to a free app update, your phone will claim that you don't own the product in the first place (despite it being right there on your phone). This occurs even if you're just updating from your phone, not iTunes.

Then there's the endless series of dialog boxes and prompts that occur when iTunes terms of service change and you have to re-acknowledge them for every app and every account.

It needs to be fixed.

 

[deefer68]

What we really need is a way to transfer purchases to another account.
If I buy a CD i then have the option of selling it as a second hand CD in the future.
With ITunes, there is not this option. Why shouldn't I be allowed to sell / give away items I have purchased?

 

[d21mike]

what we really need is a way to transfer purchases to another account.
If i buy a cd i then have the option of selling it as a second hand cd in the future.
With itunes, there is not this option. Why shouldn't i be allowed to sell / give away items i have purchased?

+1

 

[rowley]

Resale of apps is not relevant in this conversation.

If icloud needs one username for the PDA aspect, and the iTunes ID for the app/music synching then so be it.

New users to the system will have one account I suspect, but us users who have been on the apple books for years (me since 2004), will just have to add another username and password in. I thought this was going to be a big deal, but it's not anymore.
No kittens have been killed because of this and your family is not being threatened.
Keep calm and carry on.

 

[d21mike]

Resale of apps is not relevant in this conversation.

If icloud needs one username for the PDA aspect, and the iTunes ID for the app/music synching then so be it.

New users to the system will have one account I suspect, but us users who have been on the apple books for years (me since 2004), will just have to add another username and password in. I thought this was going to be a big deal, but it's not anymore.

For me it would be a big problem if you could only have 1 for everything. My wife and I share all of out iTunes purchases. We have our own MM AppleId for everything else. If I had to use my iTunes ID for everything then I would have re-purchase everything that my wife wanted from our iTunes Account.

 

[ArmanUV]

Not true at all. There are numerous defects in iTunes and content management on the phone that occur when items are purchased with multiple accounts.

First, iTunes will tell you that several of your apps have updates, but when you go to the updates page, it'll say that there are no updates available. It also won't show you the accounts under which the various items were purchased.

Second, if you are entitled to a free app update, your phone will claim that you don't own the product in the first place (despite it being right there on your phone). This occurs even if you're just updating from your phone, not iTunes.

Then there's the endless series of dialog boxes and prompts that occur when iTunes terms of service change and you have to re-acknowledge them for every app and every account.

you are NOT using multiple IDs for itunes store purchases. You are using ONE SINGLE ID for purchasing apps, music and books thru App Store, iTunes and iBooks. All of your purchases are tied to a single ID, the one you had always been using. you will be using ANOTHER SINGLE ID for icloud services such as mail, contacts, calanders, backups and photostream. These two IDs do NOT need to be the same.
I'm sorry but I can't explain it any clearer.

 

[pikeville21]

For those of us concerned about music purchased on an old iTunes account, would it be possible to use iTunes Match to migrate that music to our new MobileMe/iCloud account? Of course, this solution would make keeping Apps more difficult, but it could be ideal for those wanting to merge accounts.

 

[kurzz]

For those of us concerned about music purchased on an old iTunes account, would it be possible to use iTunes Match to migrate that music to our new MobileMe/iCloud account?

This is only speculation at this point but I would think that no you can't "migrate" it. You can listen to the music you match with iTunes Match as long as you pay the yearly fee. As soon as you stop paying, the songs you purchased under a different iTunes account would not be re-downloadable again. Again, just speculating.

 

[kurzz]

And so, it seems for now our question about account merging has been answered.

According to the new, Transition Guide from Apple,

If I use different accounts for iTunes and MobileMe, can I merge them into a single account and use it with iCloud?
No. You cannot merge two accounts into one. However, you will be able to move your MobileMe account (yourname@me.com) to iCloud and, if you choose, you can continue to use a different iTunes account for store purchases and iTunes in the Cloud.

So, we'll have to live with a separate iCloud account and iTunes account.
Though, apparently we can still use both at the same time on our iDevices (the same way it is done right now on ios 4).

 

[Casiotone]

And so, it seems for now our question about account merging has been answered.

According to the new, Transition Guide from Apple,

If I use different accounts for iTunes and MobileMe, can I merge them into a single account and use it with iCloud?
No. You cannot merge two accounts into one. However, you will be able to move your MobileMe account (yourname@me.com) to iCloud and, if you choose, you can continue to use a different iTunes account for store purchases and iTunes in the Cloud.

----

So, we'll have to live with a separate iCloud account and iTunes account.
Though, apparently we can still use both at the same time on our iDevices (the same way it is done right now on ios 4).

This is good news.

It seems to address the problem people were afraid of. You won't have to choose between your iTunes and mobileMe accounts, you'll be able to use both at the same time for their respective uses. iTunes for media/apps purchases, @me.com for email and other iCloud stuff.

This is only speculation at this point but I would think that no you can't "migrate" it. You can listen to the music you match with iTunes Match as long as you pay the yearly fee. As soon as you stop paying, the songs you purchased under a different iTunes account would not be re-downloadable again. Again, just speculating.

iTunes Match is only about non-iTunes purchased tunes that would be matched and be available as iTunes versions on your iDevices. Purchased iTunes music can now be re-downloaded as much as you want even if you don't pay for iTunes Match (in fact this feature was unlocked after the keynote on iOS 4.3)

 

[MobiusStrip]

you are NOT using multiple IDs for itunes store purchases.

WRONG. People ARE using multiple IDs, because Apple has forced them to use E-mail addresses as IDs; and when people change E-mail addresses they set up yet another account.

Apple has allowed this defect to persist and provided no means of merging these MULTIPLE accounts. Jeez, man, read.